Culture matters, no. 48

Nicholas Eberstadt makes the case that fertility, like many other things, is driven by cultural factors, not just economic development.

Not obvious

Stanley Fish on "separation of Church and state."

Organic faith

A new book on the Ratzingers.

Medicalizing grief?

To try and remove sadness is like removing our humanity.

An encounter

An interview with Fr.David Neuhaus.

Isolated and then destroyed

A powerful column by Cardinal George.

Catholic?

Based on this piece one wonders if the Catholic healthcare system in the US has a future. More fundamentally, the question is whether ideals of "social justice" by themselves can provide the foundation for this type of work.

Culture matters (again)

Clive Crook wonders why Democratic politicians have a hard time connecting to the working class. Easy: because their dominant cultural background is technocratic liberalism, which is an intrinsically bourgeois way of thinking. The only way they can articulate the interests of poorer people is that everybody should become like themselves.

Does it exist?

A good discussion of the mythical (?) Catholic vote.

Logically consistent

A new book on social Darwinism and eugenics, which remain the most consistent political outcomes of scientism.

Sensational

Somebody is claiming to have found a 1st century fragment of the Gospel of Mark.

The magic number

Philip Jenkins on the link between secularization and demographics.

Anti-subsidiarity

Randall Smith on the dangers of federalizing health care regulations.

Rediscovery

It certainly takes some courage to make this kind of statement. Unfortunately the observation that European culture cannot stand without its Christian foundations is not a replacement for real evangelization.

Presciently sad

Joseph Roth was one of the first writers to perceive that Europe had chosen to uproot itself from the Christian soil of its own civilization.